


un sous-fifre

by Miraculous_Max (Maximilian_Alexander)



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: F/M, Hopeless Adrien Agreste, Marinette Dupain-Cheng Is So Done, Oblivious Adrien Agreste
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-26
Updated: 2018-12-26
Packaged: 2019-09-27 15:49:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17164814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maximilian_Alexander/pseuds/Miraculous_Max
Summary: In which Chat Noir comes to the brilliant realisation that Marinette would be great with the whole superhero thing.





	un sous-fifre

**Author's Note:**

> Merry Christmas, guys! I've had this first chapter done for a while, but I didn't want to post it until I've finished a bit of the other chapters. I kept having to rewrite them, too, so it took a while. Hopefully this will feel natural and in character? Anyways, enjoy!

     To say he’s impressed is an understatement, if he’s being honest with himself. It’s one thing when a civilian fights back to save their friend or to save themselves during an Akuma attack— he’s seen that plenty of times before. Hell, he watched his entire class stand up and fight to protect this very girl despite the very real possibility of turning into coal. But this girl goes beyond his expectations, really. He already knew about the fire she had in protecting those she cared about, but he sometimes forgets that she cares about _everybody_ , regardless of their status or whether she truly likes them or not, or whether she even really _knew_ them or not.

     This meant she was perfectly willing to do everything in her power to protect even a superhero, if the situation presented itself. And it did. And god, she _impressed_ him.

     The Marvelous Marble was a strange one, to say the least. It reminded him a bit of the Bubbler, and the Pixelator as well. A magician who claimed the ability to shrink people and trap them into small colorful orbs, and who also had the dual ability to warp reality a tad. Nearly everyone in the cramped room were able to get out, Marinette organizing and guiding everyone to safety, when suddenly the doors disappeared, along with the tables and chairs, (virtually any sort of hiding place, so to keep everyone out in the open,) and everything turned to absolute _shit_.

     He couldn’t use cataclysm, considering he was literally trapped in a room with an akuma with virtually nowhere to hide, and Ladybug wouldn’t be able to enter the room. Not to mention he’s stuck with a small handful of civilians to take care of, one of them namely being Marinette Dupain-Cheng, who only stayed attempting to usher everyone out.

     Really, it was only a matter of time before he and everyone in that room got trapped in a marble. What surprised him is how long it took to actually get caught— he quickly learns that he and Marinette make a _fantastic_ team. While most of the other citizens within the room got caught in the first half hour, (sadly, despite Chat’s honest efforts,) he and Marinette managed to work together and fight off The Marvelous Marble for two straight hours before somehow ending up pulled together and sucked into a marble.

     It didn’t end there, however. Despite their clear entrapment, Marinette was not willing to wait for rescue and instead took matters into her own hands. While Chat was perfectly willing to sit back and wait for Ladybug to make her appearance, Marinette was figuring out brilliant ways to escape without the use of cataclysm. She had taken his baton and extended it until it hit both ends of the circular glass cage, then continued to extend it until the pressure shattered the enclosure around them. It had never occurred to Chat that his baton was stronger than the raw strength the suit gave him.

     Escaping the marble didn’t mean they were back to full height, but Marinette had found a solution for that as well, going as far as to use their newfound miniature stature to their advantage. The Marvelous Marble hadn’t even noticed them climbing their way up his cape and across his arm, didn’t notice them grabbing hold of his wand, and didn’t notice them wishing for their regular height. He only noticed when all of a sudden, two people he could have _sworn_ he had trapped in a marble magically appeared at full-height, both of their hands gripping and tearing away the wand from his possession. While Chat had stood in amazement, Marinette made quick work of wishing the doors back into place, then booked it out of the room, yelling about calling Ladybug over.

     Saying he was impressed was most _definitely_ an understatement. She took what he would have considered a bad situation and worked it to their favour, using it as a clever stealth tactic to not only wish almost everything back to normal, but to also get the possessed item in one go.

     Logically, he had to gush about the whole thing the very moment Ladybug came kicking in through the doors.

     “My lady, did you _see_ that— No, of course you didn’t, but well— Marinette was— I—”

     “Hold it, Chaton. Maybe organise your thoughts a bit before trying to speak,” Ladybug said, plucking the akumatised item from his hand and swiftly purifying the akuma.

     “Did Marinette tell you what even happened?”

     “In the sixty seconds it took me to get here after she escaped? Um, no. The most she was able to say was ‘Ladybug! Help! Now!’ She left as quickly as she could after getting my attention.”

     The superheroine called up a lucky charm, seeing as she hadn’t needed to use any during this fight. A red and black polka-dotted paper fell into her hands, two shiny gold stickers stuck onto it. She smiled, peeled them off the paper, and stuck both stars onto Chat’s chest.

     “Well done, Chat. I’m proud of you.”

     Unexpectedly, his entire body basically deflates at the praise, and he quickly pinches off one of the stickers from him chest, pouting down at it.

     “What, are the stickers not enough?”

     “The second one was meant for _Marinette_ , my lady, not me! And she’s not even here to get it from you herself,” he said, sounding _devastated_ , almost. “I dunno, it just doesn’t seem fair, especially considering Marinette is the real reason I was even able to get the stupid wand for you in the first place. She deserves some credit.”

     Ladybug is weirdly silent for a moment, looking somewhat surprised and confused.

     “Well,” she says after the moment has passed. “The next time you see her, you should tell her what my lucky charm was. I wasn’t even around, but my lucky charm acknowledged her help, right? I’m sure that would count for something.”

     The seemed to cheer him up somewhat.

     “Yeah… Yeah, you’re right! Next time I see her, I’ll do just that.”

 

* * *

 

     The next time he saw her came under unfortunate circumstances. Adrien finds himself once again left to marvel at the brilliance that is Marinette Dupain-Cheng not long after the Marvelous Marble, only this time clad in his civilian clothing. For once, the current situation (despite how bad it may be,) had nothing to do with an akuma. It’s a painful reminder that there’s more than a single evil that resides within the city of Paris. There’s thieves, murderers, con artists, and many other criminals hidden beneath all the other disasters that Parisians find themselves more often worried about than anything else. Most importantly, in the context of this particular moment in the story, there’s _kidnappers_. 

     He’d somehow forgotten that he was technically a very famous rich boy with a very famous rich father who would pay a very famously rich ransom to see his kidnapped son returned, safe and sound. Unfortunately, he wasn’t exactly in a situation where he could transform right in front of the watchful eyes of a bunch of criminals, so he found himself complying with everything they demanded. Close your eyes, put your hands behind your back, don’t say a word—

     And just as he felt the rough material of cloth press against his eyelids, it suddenly goes loose and falls at the sound of a very unmanly squeal of pain.

     “Pigs will fly sooner than I'd ever let you _kidnap_ one of my friends! Listen up, all you idiotic, ski-mask wearing _prunes!_ I’m about to teach you what happens when you mess with someone I care about!”

     He knows that voice, and the surprise is enough to make him ignore the previous demands of his kidnappers and snap his eyes wide open. Marinette was a fiery vision, the heel of her foot pressed threateningly into the throat of the kidnapper who had attempted to blindfold him. In her hands was a shiny metal pipe, water dripping out of it, looking as though she had just cleanly ripped it out of the side of a building. Which, actually, she probably did. Marinette was smart enough not to get into a fight with three large adult men without a weapon to even the odds.

     Still, while she may have taken one man out, that doesn’t change the fact that she’s a tiny fourteen year old girl against another two criminals who are more than likely armed with knives, or maybe even _guns_. Adrien really can’t allow her to get hurt.

     “Marinette, what the _hell_ are you doing?! They’ll kill you!”

     “Thanks for the vote of confidence, Adrien,” she said, surprisingly snarky. “I got this. Don’t worry, I _got_ this.”

     The last two sentences sounded like she was reassuring herself more than she was reassuring Adrien, which really just made the whole thing all the more alarming. He has no doubt that she can handle herself, but this wasn’t a fight in which she was protecting herself— she was protecting someone else, someone she cared about. And he knows from experience that when you protect someone you care about, you’re perfectly willing to let yourself get hurt in their place. Quite frankly, he didn’t care what happened to him so long as Marinette stayed out of this and stayed _safe_.

     Less than ten minutes later, he finds that he definitely should not have underestimated Marinette’s sheer strength, both in mind and body. She’s clever, quick, and knowledgable of all the exact places in the human anatomy that hurt the most. She makes a point to strike those areas fast and hard using both the metal pipe and her fingers as the last two standing criminals attempt to come at her, using their momentum against them. She doesn’t even flinch at the pair of knives the men brandish, (thank God, it was only knives,) and simply continues to fight with pinpoint accuracy. When the two finally collapse under her assault, he finds himself too scared to ask her where she even learned that. (He suspects her mother.)

     Once she finished, she wiped the sweat off her brow with the back of her hand, letting one end of the pipe in her other grasp clang against the concrete. Her back is facing him, too focused on keeping an eye on the evildoers that she pretty much single-handedly _destroyed_ , but she took a quick second to look over her shoulder and give him a reassuring smile.

     “It’s over now, Adrien,” she said soothingly, as if _he_ was somehow in more life-threatening danger just by standing around when she was taking on armed criminals with nothing but a stupid _pipe_. “Don’t worry. I’m gonna call the cops to pick these guys up, and I’ll stay by your side until they get here. Okay?”

     He can only nod dumbly.

     He owes her more than one sticker, now, dammit.

 

* * *

 

     Just his luck, the next time he actually interacts with her as _Chat Noir_ , he isn’t even able to get a word in before she’s dashing over to take a hit from an akuma in his place. While her bravery would normally leave him in awe, this particular stunt leaves him feeling rather sick to his stomach. The akuma had only just showed up, and he hadn’t had the time to even deduce what sort of powers it had. Hell, he didn’t even have a _name_ to go by, yet. What cheesy villain name was it today? He doesn’t know! He’s too horrified to hear anything other than the rush of blood in his ears and his own voice screaming after Marinette.

     Fortunately for him— which, yes, that is rare indeed— the beam hadn’t done much other than make her look a couple years younger. And by that extension, taken away her memories from the last couple of years. It may have been a good thing that she took that hit for him, because if the version of him from two years ago were to suddenly wake up walking around in a skintight super suit, not knowing what the fuck he was supposed to do, he may have very well made some grave mistakes. As far as the version of him from two years ago knew, magic didn’t even exist.

     He grabbed twelve year old Marinette by the waist and booked it as soon as he could. He couldn’t allow himself to get too close to the akuma, which he then learned was named Maturity, due to the real fear of getting hit. He’s not equipped for long-distance battling either, that being more Ladybug’s thing than his. It was a strategic retreat.

     It takes him a moment to realise that, after he had finally hidden himself and Marinette in an alley a little ways away from the akuma, she was being strangely quiet. Finally being out of the danger zone, he allowed himself to gauge Marinette’s reaction.

     Her expression was rather pensive. And shy.

     “You… I’m, um, I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be mean, but uh… Who are you?” 

     Well. How could he possibly pass up the opportunity to give her a great first impression all over again? He knows he failed it as Adrien, and he may have turned up the drama a bit too high as Chat that one time, but surely he can get it just right now that he’s been given a third chance. (Yikes, though. The fact that he needed a _third_ try at it says a lot.)

     With a smile that he hoped was both charming and gentle, he responds, “I’m your knight in shining leather this afternoon. Pleasure to meet you again, little lady. You may call me Chat Noir. Do you want me to explain what happened?”

     Her face is incredibly expressive, her brows scrunching up at the obvious question regarding what he meant when he said ‘again.’ Hesitantly, she shoots him a tiny nod, and he explains in as much detail as he can about what’s been going on for the past two years, and what had happened to revert her back to how she was now. She listens patiently and attentively, drinking up every word as though he were reading her a fantastic book.

     “So,” she whispered a moment after he had finished his explanation. “Are we, um… Are we friends? You know me pretty well.”

     “Well, I’d like to think so,” he responds without a moment’s hesitation. “You’ve helped me in battle from time to time, and my partner Ladybug has even trusted you enough for you to take her place in dealing with an akuma once before. Which, by the way, you handled spectacularly well.”

     Her resulting smile is blinding, hands clasped together over her chest and eyes shimmering with joy. He has to blink a few times in order reorientate himself.

     “I have a friend,” she whispers in awe, and suddenly there’s a pit in his stomach at the implication of those words.

     “You have lots of friends, little lady,” he replies softly. “And they’re probably worried about you right about now, on that note. Your parents, too. Half of Paris probably saw what you just did, I’m sure it’s on the news. What do you say we get you back home?”

     “I’d say that’s a stupid idea.”

     He blinks.

     “What?”

     A good portion of Marinette’s shyness washed away, although a blush still adorns her cheeks. She’s frowning, eyeing him in a way that makes him feel horribly self-conscious for whatever reason.

     “I said that’s a stupid idea. If half of Paris saw what I did, then they probably identified me on the news already. The villain who attacked you might be expecting you to drop me off back home, and is waiting for you there. It’s a better idea to take me to a friend’s house than mine.”

     Oh.

     She’s… absolutely right. Alya was probably screaming about her “best friend Marinette” on the Ladyblog during her livestream when she got hit, so there’s no doubt Hawkmoth would have had no trouble finding out about her address. _Especially_ considering it’s on top of one of the most popular patisseries in Paris. Sure, there’s a chance Hawkmoth might have thought Chat Noir would have just dumped her on the street somewhere. There’s a chance that, even _if_ Hawkmoth knew Chat Noir was still with Marinette, he wouldn’t do anything with that information. Still, _sometimes_ Hawkmoth has his smart moments, and Chat hadn’t even _considered_ that that could have been one of them.

     “You’re two years younger but you’re still smart as hell, I really can’t say I’m surprised.”

     She grins.

     “Would now be a good time to tell you I have a plan?”


End file.
